thevault

DID YOU KNOW?
that the nenek moyang of all cockroaches lives in the female toilet of singapore rowing association?

its HUGE and disgusting nak mampos. YUCK.

anyways,
i went for the NDP preview last week.
this year's NDP is a must watch.
i mean it.
yeah. so i got a little lucky this time. 2 tix for the ndp preview tru the lousy ballotting. preview pun jadi lah kan? actually syahir won it but i was the one who semangatly ballot using all my brothers' ic numbers so i should get a part of it and he had camp anyway so yoohoo, guess who went for the previews? nyaha. u must get jealous kay cuz its really a superb celebration not bcuz i went for it, cuz its simply too good to be put into words. so even if u dont have the tix for the national day parade itself, go do urself a favour and sit by the marina on 9th august and enjoy the show, from far will do. its worth ur time, trust me. :)

lihatlah gambar2 menarik yang telah dipetikkan oleh saiyidah aisyah yang tengah semangat kebabian ketika preview hari kebangsaan.

golden tickets

excited people.

WHERE'S WALLY? hahahaha!

oh! and before the opening of the ndp, they had this mini dragonboat competition and freaking coincidently, BPGHS and ACJC were both invloved in the 3 boats race! the other boat was TPJC if im not wrong but what are the chances of having both ur schools in the event! BP won the race- by a lot. haha. go BP! :)

reason #42 why i love BP: we are winners, bebeh!

we werent the only excited people, we realised.

the commandos were the GOH for this year. they look hot, how i wish i had front row seats!

and i fell in love with the navy uniform. i think even the ugliest man will look drop dead handsome in it.

i'll say this is the most beautiful part of the show.

LAAAWWAAAA, kan kan kan?? :D

and the fun pack's nice, dont u think so? mine's RED :)

and this is the #01 reason why i LOVE NDPs. after u watch this vid, im very much sure u'll wanna go and watch it.

so check it out. (haha. saying check it out makes me snortt.) yah i went for this social malay camp i went like a few weeks ago and i wanted to tell u all about it cuz its like one of the most exciting camps ive ever been to. okay so yah, my mum was the one who suggested that i should go for the camp since im lacking of malay friends. haha.
my group's called VORTEX. we're the best og in the world, noone can beat okay. im serious. look at us, we're so semangat about anything and everything.

we practised duck walking to prepare for our next challenge!

and we strategize before every game.

thats what made us winners. heh :)

and we love our cheer. very much.

my group's just amazing made up of amazing people. what more is there to say?

thats us on our last night of the camp where we had this supposedly grand dinner at west coast cc. the food was disappointing. i will always remember that day cuz we had nasi goreng for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

the camp was waaayyyy better than what i expected. mom's objective was met: for aisyah to make many new malay friends. in fact ive made plenty :)
we stayed at kent ridge hall which looks like a bloody condo lah. but we had to share a single room with a friend at first i was disappointed but later i didnt mind at all cuz i had a superbly nice roomie, atikah. she was so so nice and sweet lah. i feel like a monster.

bestest roomie, atikah :)

on the first night of the camp they made us watch this mind boggling creepy movie, Mindhunters, which got us kinda addicted. we chose to watch it until the end even though it was already 1am!

the gorgeous view from the rooftop.

on the last night, my group grabbed our sleeping bags and walid and haida bought ice cream for us and we bunked out at this very same rooftop where we watched mindhunters. we started talking about relationships, marriages, school, ourselves, everything! and to open up to these people whom ive only known for like what, 3 days!! was amazing. its just so incredible how much our group had bonded and now we feel so close to one another its like we've known each other for years! thats why Vortex rocks, and enough is being said. :)

and we even make pretty good jumpshots :) :) :)

another of our night activity was the telematch at west coast park where we had to friggin walk from school to west coast! the groups were separated into different groups just for one night. my group was PAYUNG cuz one of the facis' name was ella. and we're so payungly semangat. i love payungs too okay :)

umbrella, ella, ella, eh eh eh.

the other best thing about being in this camp is to find out how small this world can be. like bella, who lives ten mins away from me and ive never seen her before this in my life. and she knows so many people i know and everytime she mentions a name i will go like, "OMG, i know him/her!" and its pretty exciting, u know. okay i get excited easily, i know but u get the point dont you?

bella, the pretty one :)

okays. so im pretty much done about camp. i told u its exciting. i did not regret one bit attending it. but missing 4 days of training wasnt as exciting. graar.

oh oh! and the bestest thing about the camp has to be the fact that it doesnt stop there. we had a camp reunion last night at east coast park where Walid was voted best male faci and Hanan best male camper and they made vortex proud and we did our cheer again and omg, we were all so happy, we played polar bear in one big group until 11.30pm. it was madness! after cleaning up, haikal sent the northlanders home and i reached home at 1.30am! haha. crazy but it was so so fun.

sigh.

but again guess what i had the next morning. i had to wake up at 5am. i slept in the train like a log, i didnt cared how i looked like. amazing thing was, i could wake up at 5am without feeling like shit. im impressed with myself. haha.

*pats on my back*

and i skipped training the past 3 days cuz fass had orientation talks which were pretty important esp for blur freshmen like me. coach wasnt too happy.

oh, and our first round of bidding for modules are over. i bidded for psychology, malay and socio. i didnt get socio though cuz the demand was pretty high. but im happy i got psychology. maybe i'll bid for geog the next round. i havent thought about it yet. and the few previous nights, ive been staying up until morning to plan my timetable carefully so that i can train in the mornings and evenings. some people think im crazy thinking about the choosing of modules too much. like, waaaaay too much.

and talking about trainings, SEA Games is in less than 4 months and that is pretty scary shit.

oh i emailed the school the other day telling them that i may face some problems missing school for a few days, even weeks, when it comes to overseas competitions and trainings. they suggested some alternatives:

one, to take lesser modules which also means i have to take more next time.

two, skip the whole sem completely. go full time. which is possible but nah, i dont wanna think about it.

and three, to choose modules that doesnt clash with my race days. like go for exam, fly to thailand, row, finish, fly back, do exam. giler.

i know that shooter vanessa yong (is that her name?) decided not to enter uni first cuz she wants to go full time but for goodness sake ssc has invested thousands of dollars for her!

anyway, competitions drawing closer also means that i have to go on a diet again cuz ive been eating alot lately. especially cuz the canteen food in nus is freaking cheap. especially the western food stall. and its also nice, thats the bad thing u see. haha.

oh and we had matric fair that day and i thought of trying something new and definitely nothing to do with the water. so i signed up for silat and soccer. and one of the soccer girls asked me if i was interested in playing netball until the end of sept and i said why not! so my first training would be next monday and im so excited. hello? NETBALL? its been 2 years since ive played netball! how can i not be excitied? :D :D :D

told u i get excited easily.

nyaha.

oh and my granny's in stable condition now. she's looking much better, although i doubt she can recognize us anymore. :( she's not able to talk and eat as well so the nurse has to feed her tru this tube thats inserted inside her nose. once when i went to visit her, the nurse was about to feed when she found the tube missing. she searched everywhere but couldnt find it. my grandma's right hand is paralysed and left hand tied to the bed and my gut feeling's telling me she took it out, somehow. its not a funny thing but i find it hilarious and im sorry.

i shall take back what i said.

they're moving her to ang mo kio community hospital next week and my family's prolly getting a maid for the first time.

and guess who has to share a room with her?

japan and camp

on monday, 16th july 2007, i came home from my evening run to see my grandma lying on the floor in her bedroom, her body jerking, her eyes staring into space. i was freaking scared. i panicked. i called out her name over and over again. she didnt respond. i called 995.
she was sent to the hospital. the doctor said that there's a blood clot in her left side of the brain so now her whole right side of her body is paralysed. and she still hasnt woken up yet. doctor said that chances of her recovering is minimal and they discourage eldery patients to undergo operations at this age. i went to visit her yesterday at the icu and she still hasnt woken up yet. im scared.
i pray that she'll be fine, Insyaallah.

anyway, i just came back from the NUS "malay" camp. it was a blast, definitely. but missing 4 days of training is not really exciting, really, knowing very well that when i return back for training im gonna get a whole load of shit from coach and nicholas. so i went back for training yesterday and yep, i got what i anticipated.

but i told myself, just keep quiet. dont fight back. hang in there, aisyah.

i heard: responsibility. national athlete. lazy. lazy. lazy. lazy. lazy. elsie. lalala. then i started singing to myself, "words cant bring me down."

and he'll always and forever remember this very week you missed training for five days and will never remember other great things you do and the sacrifices you've made. nope, never.

anyhoo. the japan trip was great. even though we dint bring home any medals, in fact did not even made it into the semi finals. im not being a sore loser but i swear there's something wrong about the boat thats why i couldnt row my best. i wasnt even tired when the race finished. stupid boat. ergh.

our flight to Bangkok had a personal TV and i watched Little Miss Sunshine. we transferred to another airplane to Narita Airport. Thai Airways food is goooooood. but too bad during our journey to japan i was still on a diet. so i could only eat half of whatever i was served.
it was raining throughout the whole day and night on our first day in Japan. it was so cold nak mampos, i thought the rain wouldnt stop. it didnt, until the next morning. it was so cold i had to row with my track pants and jacket. thank the heavens the following days were pretty hot and dry. but the abrupt change in weather made my lips crack and bleed. :(

the rowing competition was held in this small town near tokyo called toda koen.

so there's no high rised buildings and not much shopping to do except grocery shopping. and shopping is definitely a no no in japan. the things there are freaking expensive. like one banana costs about $1.50! one bloody banana not a special banana with more banana flavour but freaking normal banana which tastes like NTUC banana or cold storage banana and its not even del monte banana! but i love their yogurt and the many many many kinds of food you can never find in singapore.

FOOD.

food there is great la. what else is there to say. singapore's halal ramen ten jap restaurant is nothing compared to the real thing, pls.

i look forward to meal times all the time so we can walk around the town to search for food. pretty exciting exploring new places to eat.

this is where we had our first lunch

this was my first meal in japan - udon noodles with egg and cucumber and some stupid tasting chilli slices and cold soup. yummmy.

at first i poured the whole soup into the noodle bowl then the next day we discovered the correct way of eating this dish. mix some red chilli pepper and one of the many sauces they provide you with in the cold soup. use your chopsticks to grab some noodles and dip them in the soup, then slurp the noodles up putting your mouth at the edge of the bowl and push the noodles into your mouth using ur chopsticks. haha. yummmy okay.

the ambience of the restaurant seems like it appeared straight from your tv screen while you're watching a jap drama serial

and the menus are so cool cuz u dont understand anything and u look like a kid reading a picture book, facinated by the pictures.

ordering food is exciting, thats for sure. the waiter usually doesnt understand a word of english, which makes it all the more fun. we will be trying to explain to him with so much animation that we dont want pork. and each of us having different diets makes it even more interesting. i will usually order noodles with soup and egg or vege. nic and his sons will go for various seafood dishes and wai mun will always want his food to come with an extra bowl of rice. we got so pissed trying to explain to them what we want we had to look up the net for translations. i found out that butanike is pork and we remember it as "butang ni ke?" :)

suba noodles with spicy soup and spinach and pot stewed egg

my favourite- spicy pasta. :)

the biggest meal i had- udon noodles and cold soup + rice with brinjal curry + salad

our welcome tea- boxes of sushi, marie biscuits, pokki sticks, chocolate sweets, fanta and green tea and beer.

the national training centre where our dorms are located.

oh i shared a room with 7 other hong kong girls. they're really nice. but a little messy. look at the condition of our room.

and on our last night before we leave, we went out of the training centre to the nearby river to play with fireworks. even though i hardly understand what they're saying, it was really fun :)

and then they invited me for supper as well, thats when i ate octopus ball and realised that it tastes like chicken.

okay then there was one day after the race when we went out to town, supposedly to shop but then again, everything in japan is just too expensive. i feel like a malaysian shopping in singapore. haha. anyway, we took the train to Shinjuku.

check out the train system. woots.

excited okay. :D

they closed the streets to cater to the large population of shoppers.

hoho. LARGE is a word too small to describe the number of people in Shinjuku. my goodness, its worse than the worst peak hour condition, worse than the worst great singapore sale atmosphere ive ever seen before. and its a normal shopping sunday. we visited Isetan shopping centre which is like supposedly a very high end shoppoing centre. and its so annoying that they obey the "stand on the left of the escalator" rule even though there's no one walking up or down on the right side. and it was freaking packed nak mampos i swear so imagine lah, everyone squeeing on the left side, queuing up to take the escalator.

culture shock lah, definitely.

and the way they dress up. felt like im living a scene from a movie made in japan. and ohmygawd despite not being able to shop, it was a feaking once in a lifetime experience. i like.

nice hor the way they arrange their fruits in the supermarket.

and its so frekaing cater for the filthy rich, this box of 2 rock melons costs 31500 yen which is equivalent to S$393.75 - for rock melons.

and we went all the way to tokyo and had lunch in the most expensive indian restaurant ive ever been to. one dollar for a plate of rice. hurhur.

oh and tokyo itself has more than 6 million vending machines, did u know? fast fact! fast fact! haha. its everywhere, i swear. this is one selling cigarretes at a selit selit at a housing estate.

and japan wouldnt be japan without the seafood. yuck. this is our first dinner. raw suqid and fish, they're so fresh the stink is so strong. yuck. i ate beancurd that night.

smelly like hell, really.

and thats us busy rigging our boats. stupid boat. or maybe its my stupid rigging.

random signboard.

they call me M Rafaee. and yes, i was lousy.

thats Nihon Uni Boat House where our boats are kept and where there's the Nakata look alike. hot okay. hahaha.

and yup, that us. :)

and nic called me the black japanese. he wanted to leave me in japan, okay. :(

okay cool. so when i reached singapore noone picked me up cuz i dint tell anyone when im coming home cuz i didnt know what time i'll reach home. but okay, so i bought popeyes and ate alone, okay. damn sad but nevermind. coach was pissed when i went training the next day cuz we didnt even get into the semi finals and he was being so freaking sarcastic about it lah. and he makes full use of it to tell me that i should train twice or more a day, one session a day is not enough. he called me lazy.

and i'll tell u more about the NUS camp soon. grar. i miss camp. i miss the people and i have to go visit my grandma now and there's just so much to do. argh.

next time then.